By Fate's Hand
by Katy Cruel
Summary: Death hands the storytelling reins over to Fate to tell you the story of Silke Amsel, the posterchild for Hitler's perfect Aryan - who fell in love with a hidden Jew. (Book Thief AU including my own character. Disclaimer: I don't own any part of The Book Thief. Only Silke belongs to me.) Please review! (sort of on hiatus but not really? Updating when I can.)
1. Chapter 1

*****A SMALL FACT*****

**You are going to die.**

But you most likely already knew that.

*****ANOTHER SMALL FACT*****

**This is not my story to tell.**

Very few of the stories I tell are truly my stories. Being, after all, only a result of life, I do not have many stories of my own. But there are certain stories I consider mine to tell. My story is, among others, that of Liesel Meminger. This is not the story of Liesel Meminger, though they do overlap quite a lot, and I will make the occasional cameo appearance. After all, on a street named after Heaven, you can only go so long without running into someone else's story.

The story of Silke Amsel belongs to another, and she will do a much better job of telling it than I would in any case. I'm not the sentimental type, and Silke's story is decidedly one of sentiment. Honestly, I'd probably just bore you.

The "She" in question is, I guess, one that a human would liken to being a sister to me, though neither of us would describe our partnership as anything so common. She decides who I take and who I leave – up to the point where her sentimentality gets in the way and I or another has to make the hard decisions. That was the case for Rudy Steiner. I certainly didn't want to take him, and she didn't want to see him go. She had so much more planned for him than he ever got.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Again.

*****A TRANSITION*****

**For this is not my story. **

For now, I bid you all adieu. I leave you in the capable hands and words of your new narrator.

* * *

><p>Getting straight to the point, I will not bore you with introducing myself. After all, you aren't here to listen to my story - only one that is mine to tell. I will begin, instead, with introducing you to our dear heroine, Silke Amsel.<p>

If you follow the events of Silke Amsel's life far enough, you will find that unlike most great people, her story really did start with her birth - in Stuttgard, in 1918. Because when Silke was born, her mother died. I had a run-in with my brother that day, for as I stood over the pale infant in the crib, about to place a kiss on her forehead - an apology for all she would have to face in her future - he appeared behind me, gently lifting Krista Amsel's soul from her weakened, sweaty body. He would later tell me that as he pulled her away, though she was weak and limp in his arms, he could hear her screaming for the child who would never know her - to be let go, taken back. It was useless, of course. As he faded away, her body went limp, and Silke started to scream - wanting to be given to a mother who could no longer hold her.

I needed to go.

I reached down into the crib, intending to brush back the fine strands of pale blonde hair as a gesture of something resembling comfort. Instead, one of her tiny fists reached up and caught my finger.

Her crying suddenly halted and her eyes opened to stare at me with far more awareness than a newborn should have.

"I'm sorry," I murmured to her, before pulling my finger free, and turning to leave. The last thing I heard was a shout from the hall as Krista's body was discovered.

* * *

><p>The next major development in the life of Silke Amsel was the day she got out of school half an hour early.<p>

She was thirteen years old, though her body remained convinced she was still 12. Her hips were still narrow and her chest still flat - though her face, with its large blue eyes and high cheekbones, was certainly developing into something that might be called "pretty". Her pale blonde hair was worn long in two pigtails which rested on the shoulders of her worn coat.

Silke's eyes brightened with excitement when she spotted her brother in a crowd of boys on a nearby corner then her forehead creased as she frowned. The boys were...fighting?

She quickened her pace, pushing through the outside circle of boys until she was close enough to get a good look at the center. I followed close behind. My job had already been done, but when I can, I do like to see the results of my work. None of the boys felt my presence the way Silke did.

When she finally broke through to the front of the throng, Silke was shocked by what she was seeing. Her brother, Mathias, was there - tall and slim, a shock of pale blonde hair trained back from his face to reveal his wide blue eyes, much like her own. His fists were raised as he faced off against a boy about the same age as him, but that was where the similarities ended. The boy opposite her brother had yet to hit his own growth spurt and stood only an inch or two taller than Silke herself and was wire thin. His hair was thick and dark and his eyes were thick and dark. Both boys already had scraped knuckles. Mathias had a split lip and the other boy had a lovely bruise blooming on his right cheek.

As I'm sure you may have already figured out, the other boy was Max Vandenburg.

The two circled each other for long seconds when Mathias locked eyes with Silke over Max's bony shoulder. His eyes widened and Max, seeing the distraction, seized the moment and lunged for his opponent, landing a punch on Mathias' jaw. He managed to turn his head in time that it didn't hit him too squarely, the smaller boy's fist glancing to the side, but it still had to hurt. As Mathias lurched forward to retaliate, Max leapt back and the boys fell back into their pattern of circling.

Silke watched with wide eyes, her heart going fast as the boys threw and dodged punches in a sort of violent parody of a tennis match. Her fingers clenched in her skirt as she watched Max land a punch on her brother's chest, knocking the wind out of him, and then in his stomach. Mathias managed to get one on Max's right cheek, briefly knocking him back as the bruise already there deepened but before long, he was back at full and had somehow knocked Mathias to the ground - making Silke let out a small shriek that was not quite lost in the voices as the crowd of boys started counting. Max's eyes flicked to her, following the sound and his eyebrows went up, his mouth popping open just a fraction. Silke noticed his eyes for the first time. She had thought they were just brown at first - the eyes of your average Jew, dark and murky. They were not.

Pale, safe blue locked with dark, mossy green and I sighed with contentment. My work was done for now. Just as the gathered boys reached ten and cheers went up, I drifted away. From the corner of my vision, I could see Mathias climbing to his feet and raising Max Vandenburg's hand into the air. Max didn't even seem to notice.

* * *

><p>It was many years before I saw Silke again. As she flitted around the cramped, yet surprisingly bare, apartment, making sure she hadn't forgotten anything before locking up, I reached delicately into her emergency bag just before she lifted it, dislodging one of the items.<p>

The air raid sirens were urging her on, though, and she didn't hear it or see it fall to the ground, and it wasn't until she was halfway down the stairs of the shelter, bringing up the rear, when she realized it wasn't there.

Silke froze, horror-struck, before whipping around and flying back up the stairs. Voices called after her but she ignored them. Her feet were quick and light and nearly silent on the broken pavement of Himmel Street and the moon was high and bright overhead, illuminating everything like a cruelly sweet spotlight. It wasn't until she was on her way back to the shelter - moving somewhat slower, since she definitely couldn't hear any planes - that she saw it. No, not it.

Him.

A figure stood in the center of the road, his head thrown back in what could only be described as euphoria. He turned slowly in a circle, admiring the sky. As he faced her, Silke could see the wide smile that split his face like a crack in drywall. It was a nearly perfect image, looking at the tall man standing there, his arms spread wide in amazement as he watched the stars. Then the wind shifted, pulling at Silke's pale hair. It caught the moonlight and the man's trance was broken as his eyes snapped to her. The smile vanished, replaced by what could only be described as terror.

Silke's eyes met his, and even in the blue-grey wash of the moonlight, she could see it.

Dark brown hair floated like paper caught in a breeze around the dark moss green eyes that stared back at her.

Her mind processed all of this at what felt like an agonizingly slow pace, but it was only mere seconds later when her mouth formed the single word that saved them both.

"Max?"

* * *

><p><em>Things I discovered today: <em>

_1. Writing fight scenes is hard. _

_2. Writing scenes with next to no dialogue is hard. _

_3. I'm glad to have this part done with. _

_Thanks to Hannah for coaching and coaxing me though the process and helping me work out backstory details and such. I'm also fairly aware that this is basically one small step up from a shameless self-insert but I can't really be bothered because I like Silke and also Max is adorable. _


	2. Chapter 2

Despite every effort on her part to keep it quiet, Silke's move to Himmel Street was somewhat of an affair.

In its beginning, it was an affair filled with uproar - threats, pleading, shouting so loudly that the landlord came and knocked on their door, and one quiet request. Her father issued the threats; to disown her, to cut her off, to lock her up and never let her leave. Her brother pleaded; he would be called away to duty soon but nevertheless, he when he came back to visit home, he wanted her to be at home. The two culminated in a three-way row so bad their downstairs neighbor asked the landlord to check on them. The knock on the door that interrupted the fight seemed to echo in the sudden silence that followed.

The quiet request was Max's. His hands were shoved deep into his pockets as he restrained himself from reaching out to her. Silke's hands were locked behind her own back in a similar suppression.

Max's voice was cracked, sounding dusty to her worn ears as his mossy eyes watched her feet. "Just," he murmured, the sound breaking off into jagged pieces that snagged on the hem of her skirt. "Just don't forget me." It was the only selfish thing he'd ever asked of her.

Something in her broke quietly to watch the half-destroyed Jew before her - the man whom the Führer had forbidden her from loving.

"I won't."

The words were screamed, inside of her head, throwing themselves at Max as she wanted to do herself. But on her lips, they died, wilting inside her mouth as she only nodded, not trusting her tongue.

In its end, her move to the Himmel street apartment was an affair of whispers and rumors. A young, unmarried woman moving out of her family home was quite scandalous to the residents of Himmel and Silke found herself arriving amidst quite the buzz.

The taxi - one of the last things her father had agreed to pay for, since he wouldn't have his daughter walking halfway across Munich alone, thank you very much - pulled up outside the building that sat between its neighbors like a squat man on a crowded bus. Silke couldn't stop the grimace that marred her face as she took her first look at her new home.

After the rent price she got on it, she didn't know what else she should have expected. She opened her door and stepped out, the chilled, damp air hitting her like a physical blow, making her want to curl back in on herself. She missed home already.

The landlord - a thick man who rather matched the building itself named Wolfgang Joellenbeck, with a head of blonde hair as stiff and unmoving as a nest of wires - was there to meet her. He did not look like a man to be trifled with, but was kind enough as he showed her up to her new apartment and supplied her with some basic information.

The Müller family resided across the hall - a pitifully young widow named Hilde and her two children, Tommy and Kristina. The Ackermann family was to her right - a young couple with a six month old child. The apartment to her left was still empty.

Herr Joellenbeck left her then, and Silke took in the apartment.

It was a decided downgrade from her family home in Stuttgart - about half the size, with only one small window in the bedroom, in desperate need of a good scrub. A few battered boxes were piled by the door.

The apartment was almost completely bare, but she'd been expecting that. What she hadn't been expecting was the air of abandonment - as if this building had been intended to be emptied and left, but the residents of Himmel had simply refused to leave it alone, resulting in its continued existence.

The front room was open and fairly spacious, doing triple duty as the living room, kitchen, and dining room. Against the wall to the right – the wall she shared with the Ackermanns – was a dusty two-person sofa, a small, low table, and an empty book shelf. The left wall held the small kitchenette and a moderately-sized dining table stood in the middle of the room with two chairs. There was a door to the left leading to a small washroom that she would have shared with the neighbors on that side but now had all to herself. A door on the far side of the room lead to the bedroom, which was nearly completely bare but for the double bed pushed into a corner and the empty dresser against the left wall.

Silke's hands twisted together as she flitted around, trying to figure out where to start. This was her new home - she should make it feel like it. But in the end, she just found herself on the dusty sofa with her shoes on the floor in front of her as she tucked her feet up under herself and cried. Her sweater smelled like home in a way that made her stomach lurch and twist, but not with homesickness – rather, a musty, cold scent that battered her nose, telling her she was much better off now, that everything would be better and easier, so _why on Earth_ was the silly girl crying.

She cried on, regardless.

And an hour later, she got up, and lived.

* * *

><p>Later that evening, after she'd unpacked, Silke stood in stocking feet before the stove, making tea. She had decided to make the best of her situation, and the best of her situation called for tea. Just as she was pouring the water, steam rising off the cup like warm fingers, there was a knock on the door.<p>

Silke looked up and frowned before setting the kettle back down and going to answer the knocker.

It was a woman in her upper twenties with a worn face and kind eyes. Behind her, clinging to her skirts and peeking around her sides, were two children – a boy who looked just shy of ten with a splotch of discolored skin running from his ear down the side of his cheek, and a girl of perhaps seven with pretty blonde curls much like those Silke wore at that age.

"Would you be Silke Amsel?" the woman asked. Her voice was smooth; to Silke, who had heard nothing but the sound of her own silence all day, it was like sandpaper. "I'm Hilde Müller - from across the hall."

Silke brought a smile to her lips. "It's good to meet you, Frau Müller," she replied - and she was surprised to find that she meant it. The boy peeked out from behind his mother and his left cheek twitched. "And this must be Tommy and Kristina," she added, smiling kindly at the younger children. "Herr Joellenbeck told me about you." She shook hands with a reluctant Tommy before making the same gesture to Kristina, who reached out enthusiastically, spurred on by her brother's boldness. "What brings you lot over to my side of the hall, then?" she asked, looking between mother, son, and daughter.

"We-" Hilde began, but, to everyone's surprise - including his, I think - Tommy interrupted her.

"We'd like to see if you wanted to come over for dinner!" he piped up, stepping out from behind his mother. Silke's eyebrows went up as Tommy looked hopefully up at her. Then her face relaxed.

"I'd love to," she said, glancing at Hilde but keeping her eyes mostly on Tommy. The corners of her mouth went up, and Tommy smiled a hesitant, twitchy smile back at her.

* * *

><p>A portrait of Silke Amsel:<p>

At age 15, in 1933, the year Adolf Hitler came to power, she was approached at school by two officials in brown-shirted uniforms to inquire about a way they thought she could "help her country".

They wanted her to model.

A week later, Silke's headshots were taken. A week after that, when she was out with her brother and Max Vandenburg - whom she had stopped fearing over a year and a half ago, thank you very much - she saw why. In the window of the NSDAP office, Silke's made-up and smiling face started out at them, the words above and below her labelling her as the ideal Aryan woman. Silke's wide blue eyes stared into the pale brown rendering on the poster, her lips (which had been painted for the photograph but now were a bare, pale pink) hanging slack while Max and Mathias laughed.

A month after that, it would come to bite her in the backside.

Mathias had been kept after school by a couple of men in uniforms – no doubt to talk about how he could "help his country", in much the same way that Silke had been approached. However, this would result in a new uniform.

Silke and Max walked the streets of Stuttgart together, walking close and talking easily. Despite their friendship, they had rarely spent time together without Mathias there - and almost never had they been alone together. Perhaps it was because of their friendship's tenuous beginning, with the small and slender Silke hiding behind her brother's jacket whenever Max's gaze lingered on her for too long. But over the months, a sort of truce had developed - a truce which turned to acceptance, and then turned to friendship. And on Max's part, it had become something else entirely. Something which burned in his thin chest and which frightened him deeply.

Perhaps that fear contributed to the speed of his reaction when, as they walked up the main street, a voice behind them called out, "Hey, boys! _Kommen du schauen!_ Come look!" Silke heard the voice and felt it like a rock - thrown at her, but missing and clattering to the pavement by her side. She refused to let herself look back - though out of the corner of her eye, she could see Max glance at her and the voice raised itself again. "_Kommen du schauen!_ It's that girl from the posters!"

"Well, would you look at that!" another voice threw its ugly sound her way. "I knew she had a pretty face, but they didn't say anything about the hips on her - or the legs!"

Silke glanced at Max and grimaced. He returned the expression. But then a third voice opened itself up on them, causing Silke to freeze where she stood, still as a statue.

"Who's that with her? What's a girl like that doing with a Jewish whore-dog?"

As the words struck Silke's back, a rushing heat filled her head and ears. Her vision wavered and through the haze, she could see Max's downtrodden face and mossy eyes looking at her with concern. He put a hand to her arm, urging her onward.

"Just ignore them, Silke," he implored her. "They're not worth the effort. Let's just keep going."

"Hey, girl!" the first man called out, directly addressing her for the first time. "Don't waste your time on that trash!"

"_Ja_," the third one called out. "_Ja,_ little lady! Come see what a real German man can do for you!"

Max and Silke locked eyes and he could pinpoint the exact moment he knew it was no good. Silke ripped her arm from Max's loose grip and rounded on the men – observing them for the first time. They appeared to be in their mid-twenties. One was tall and thick-set with dark blonde hair; another was short and heavy, with a round belly, a brown mop of curls, and a well-groomed moustache; the third was tall, but shorter than the first man and built like a rock.

Silke stalked toward them with not a care in the world that she was a tall, skinny, fifteen year old girl, advancing in what couldn't have been a menacing way towards three grown men. She was used to the shouts about her body and the things men wanted to do to it - but their words about Max had incensed her.

"A _real man_?!" she called out, somehow managing to loom over them despite the fact that she stood only 5'8. "None of you three sorry _Schweine_ would know a real man if he put his foot up your _aschlöch_!"

"Silke!" Max was at her elbow now, stumbling after her and looking distressed. She ignored him. The men looked stunned - they apparently had not expected her to stick up for herself, let alone the Jew who accompanied her. They were frozen in place on the street as Silke continued to advance on them.

"_Schweine!_" she called again. "You pigs! You trash! Go home and see if any of you lot can get a cockstand for your wives instead of yelling at a girl on the street! None of you worth half your salt – none of you!" Her yelling was beginning to lose direction – becoming nothing but a string of insults as Max finally got a hand on her arm, pulling her back in the direction they'd been moving, toward the side street that would get them home.

"_Saukerl_!" she shrieked at Max, pulling against his grip, but he was ready for the resistance this time – and at two years older and five inches or so taller, he was able to contain her. Physically, at least. She was still flinging insults like mud at both the men and him in turn. "Let me go! I'm not done with those-"

Max pulled her around the corner into the alleyway and she wrenched herself free, rounding on him this time.

"Why did you do that!?" she snapped, pushing him back by the shoulders. He stumbled back as she continued to advance. "I wasn't done with them!" She pushed him again and his back hit the wall.

Max didn't have an answer. Responses like, "Because they probably could have killed both of us," and "You shouldn't have answered them in the first place," danced on his tongue but none of them were forthcoming. He just stared back at her, his mossy eyes wide and his lips slightly parted - an expression she'd seen on his face many times over the years. She frowned.

"Don't look at me like that!" Her words pushed at him now that she could shove him no further. "I know you're used to it, but that doesn't mean I have to sit there and take it too! I won't let them insult you like that!"

Max only swallowed, and then gaped at her.

"Silke, you don't-" He didn't even know where the sentence was going, so he was almost thankful when she cut him off.

"I don't care! I won't stand for it – you're better than that! Those _Schweine_! What right do they have? You were born here the same as me! You're as German as I am. It's not fair!"

Max heard her words, but over the pounding in his ears, he couldn't hear what they were saying. Her breathing was heavy with adrenaline and the color was high in her cheeks and speckled over her neck and chest. Her pale eyes were flashing as she ranted, turning and occasionally gesticulating aggressively. But she remained close to him - close enough that he could see the flecks of gold around her pupils. He swallowed hard.

"It's not right!" she was saying, leaning her head back. "Those bastards think they have a right to-"

"Silke," Max nearly spat the word out, forcing it from his lips. Her sentence broke off and her eyes snapped to him and one of his hands reached out helplessly toward her, like a drowning man reaching for a rope that hadn't been thrown to him. "Silke," her name was a plea now - a prayer. "I love you."

Silke's mouth fell open and the anger faded from her face. Her mind raced to catch up with what her ears had just heard. Her fingers flexed uselessly as she reached out to him, catching his hand before sliding up to his wrist, needing something firmer to hold onto. Her eyes found his and he could see them shining.

"Max," she murmured, and he was suddenly struck by the sound of his own name as it sounded on her lips. One of her thin-boned hands reached up and pushed the feathery strands of hair back from his face. "Oh, Max."

And then she was embracing him, her arms tight around his thin waist and her face buried into his jacket so that all he could see of her was a windblown pile of cornsilk hair. He was frozen in place for a second, shocked by the suddenness and strength of her presence. But then, slowly, as if he was afraid of spooking her and having her bolt, his arms wrapped around her. One rested on her arm and went around her waist, the other around her shoulders, resting his hand on her hair as he held her as close as their layers would allow.

Silke breathed deeply, feeling his hands shifting the fabric on her back and sides as her ribcage expanded. And it felt so good.

Neither teen had any idea how long they stayed there like that, completely wrapped up in each other, but eventually, Silke began to peel herself back gently, as if she were afraid of pulling a piece of him with her if she moved too fast. She leaned back, with his arms still around her and hers still around him. His mossy eyes were warm as she smiled up at him. "Oh, Max," she repeated, the words rolling off her tongue as naturally as breathing. "I love you."

And as she began pressing upward, Max froze, but still somehow managed to lean down and meet her lips with his own. The first instance of many where the kiss of Silke Amsel would drive the breath from Max Vandenburg's lungs.

* * *

><p><em>I guess late Sunday night is my update time. Unless something comes up - conventions or plans or something - generally expect updates Sunday night. If not, Monday morning. <em>

_I'm really terrible at writing mundane things, so thanks to Hannah for editing and coaching me through this, as well as for reading the all-caps messages I send her in the middle of the night and the middle of the day, screaming about ideas. I like to reward myself for getting through mundane things with writing the interesting things, so for a while, the chapters will probably follow this trend of What's Happening Now followed by Blast From The Past. _


	3. Chapter 3

For the next year and a half, life flowed around Silke Amsel like a river flowing around a rock. She supposed it was wearing her down at the same time, much like the rock in the metaphor, but it was in small, nearly imperceptible increments, so she paid no mind to it. She got a job at Alex Steiner's tailor shop, just up the road from her apartment, and through her acquaintance with his family, she came to know one of the best men she would ever meet - Hans Hubermann.

After she'd been on Himmel Street for three months and her only friends remained the children who played soccer in the street outside her building - including Alex Steiner's youngest son, Rudy - Alex had suggested she accompany him to the local _bierhaus_, the Knoller, to meet some of the locals nearer her own age. "Her own age" apparently meant "old enough to be her father", as she ended up sitting in the center of the room with Hans Hubermann as his plunked along on his battered accordion to the song she was singing. When they finished and the room gave them a rousing round of applause, he kissed the back of her hand softly and she thought, "This must be how most girls feel when they look at their father."

On the days she couldn't stand the impure silence of her apartment, she would walk down to the Hubermann's small house. She would talk with Rosa Hubermann while the older woman did the washing, lending a hand where she could, and when Hans got in, they would sit in the living room with accordion and voice and bring worlds to life around them - even quieting Rosa's swearing and yelling for an hour or so - before Silke would walk home to an empty and impurely silent apartment.

The entry of Liesel Meminger into the life of Himmel Street caused only a small hiccup. For many weeks, the girl was silent, wide-eyed and unwashed. Silke put her regular visits to the Hubermann house on hiatus while they tried to get the girl to settle into her new home and when, after two weeks, the girl finally appeared washed, she returned - sitting in the small kitchen and chatting with Rosa while the girl looked on with wide eyes and closed lips.

It took months for the girl to thaw and even longer for Liesel Meminger to warm to the presence of Silke Amsel in her life - but once she did, the girls were practically inseparable. Silke was more like Liesel's real mother than Rosa was; she was younger, and they had a similar look. But where Paula Meminger had been distant and loose in her parenting approach, Silke was warm and welcomed Liesel in with both literal and figurative open arms.

The months passed. A year. The waves of life washing over Silke as she flowed with it - perhaps more like seaweed than a rock. They washed over her and she twisted and turned and flowed with it, but she held her ground. Until one day, late in 1938, when she had been awoken by cries and the sounds of breaking glass. That day, the waves broke upon the rock - or possibly the weed - that was Silke Amsel. It uprooted her, stoleher away and she went roaring down the current with the rest of the rubbish.

* * *

><p><em>Kristallnacht<em> - the night of broken glass - passed without incident on Himmel Street, but several shops on Munich Street had suffered and the next street over was decimated. Windows were smashed, wares were thrown about in the slush that covered all the streets in the early November cold. Murky yellow stars were painted on doors that had been kicked in, and slurs were smeared in dripping letters over storefronts.

The news spread quickly enough - Jews, beaten, arrested, thrown from their homes and livelihoods, to rot on the streets.

Jews had been killed.

There had been only 91 deaths reported from the violence on November 9th and the early hours of November 10th, but that number was far higher than it should have been and too high for Silke's comfort. She wondered if any of those 91 Jews had feathery hair and mossy eyes.

And so she began to write. She locked herself in her apartment with paper and pens and wrote letters to everyone she could think of from her life in Stuttgart. She wrote to family in the area - though she deliberately avoided writing to her father until all other options were exhausted - and she wrote to old school friends. She wrote to all of Max's friends whose names she could remember. She wrote her brother. She wrote Max himself, though she knew he wouldn't respond.

She mailed the letters one by one, with every spare pfennig she had after being paid for the week. Responses were slow, few, and far between. Most only saw fit to respond that they had not heard from Max lately, that they hadn't heard from him in a while - that they didn't know. They never said it directly, and they never wondered why she was asking. But none of them knew.

Until one day, when she received a letter from Max's old address. But it did not bear the name "Vandenburg". Someone new was living in the former residence of the family. They did not know what had happened to the people there before them.

Silke's heart fell through the floor as she sat at the kitchen table, with unsent letters scattered around her. For the first time since she arrived in Molching, she broke down. Silke flung herself onto the couch - now much less dusty than it had been the first day she cried upon it - and curl into herself. Her hands and feet felt numb and her ears were ringing. Though all she had gotten was an "I don't know," what she heard was, "They're gone."

They were gone.

He was gone.

As the warm tears began tracking their way across her cold skin, Silke's mind raced and rushed.

She barely moved and did not emerge for another week.

* * *

><p>No one spoke about that time. Alex Steiner had quickly forgiven her - not even asking for an explanation. She lost a week of wages, but still had her job at least. She resumed her visits to the Hubermanns' house, though they were much less frequent than they had been before. More weeks passed, and then months. Liesel's birthday in February passed without fanfare and the month slid wearily into March.<p>

It was an unseasonably warm day in the middle of March that Silke was thrown once again. Walking down Munich street, the sun warming her scalp through her pale hair and her shoulders through her light jacket, Silke saw a ghost.

No, not a ghost, she realized. Only a man she had thought never to see again. The unmistakable pale hair and broad shoulders of Walter Kugler were presented to her - as he sat on the paint cart next to the grey hair and hunched shoulders of Hans Hubermann. Silke felt her mouth fall open as she watched the two men exchange words. Her feet were frozen to the pavement underneath her and her stomach lurch.

Her letter to Walter Kugler had gone unanswered and she had - apparently rightly, judging by the man's uniform - assumed that the man had joined the Party. That he couldn't care what happened to Max Vandenburg or didn't care enough to write her back.

As he raised himself from the cart and shook Hans' hand, Silke roused herself. Her feet thawed and suddenly she was striding toward him with long legs and stiff back. Her blue eyes were ablaze as Walter turned to see her and she saw the flash of recognition there, before she spoke, voice hard.

"Where is he, Walter?" Silke's tone left no room for argument as her hands settled on her wide hips. "What happened to him?"

Walter wouldn't meet her gaze. "I didn't realize you'd be here, Silke," he said, in a way that convinced no one. "I don't know who you're-"

Silke's right palm connected with Walter Kugler's left cheek with a crack that left him reeling. Her palm stung, only adding fuel to her fire as she glared down on him.

"You're full of shit," she snapped, and she could feel Hans Hubermann's stunned eyes on her, flickering between them as he tried to catch up. "You know damn well who I'm talking about, _Saukerl_. Max. Max Vandenburg! What happened to him? No one will tell me anything and I'm going crazy down here with no news!" The way Walter continued to avoid her eyes even as the red mark appeared on his face told her all she needed to know. "You _do_ know! _Arschloch_! Spit it out!"

Walter and Hans both winced visibly - Walter at her words and Hans at her volume - but she couldn't bring herself to care. She stepped up to Walter and shoved him, hard. He stumbled back and finally his eyes met hers. Silke could feel her anger slipping into desperation.

"Walter, please," she said, a pleading tone to her voice that she couldn't force out. "I need to know he's alive. I only need to know if he's all right."

Walter's face crumpled and he ran a hand over it, probably trying to buy himself some time. It failed as anger flashed on Silke's face again and she snapped, "Out with it, man!"

"All right, but lower your voice!" His voice was sharp as well, though without the hard edge of hers. His eyes flicked to Hans Hubermann, whose mouth was hanging slightly open as he stared at the two of them. "Yes," he said finally, "Max is alive. He's safe. Safe as he can be, anyway."

Silke felt a physical weight lift from her shoulders that she hadn't realized she'd been carrying. Her knees and shoulders went weak and trembled for a moment, like when you pick up an empty bag you thought had been full. Her knees buckled again and she crumpled toward the ground, sitting on her heels and wrapping her arms around herself, trying to hold back the tears of relief. Hans and Walter were both at her side in an instant, hands on her back, asking if she was all right.

Her backside hit the ground as she sat, and looked up at Walter, kneeling over her. She poked him hard in the chest. "You keep him safe," she commanded with all the authority and regal air of a queen, though she sat, legs splayed out at angles, in a second-hand dress on the cold ground of Molching. She jabbed Walter's chest again and his eyes snapped to hers. "You keep him safe since I can't. And-" Silke hesitated, the moment hanging painfully in the air before she pushed onward. "If you think to, tell him. Tell him I'm here. Tell him I-" her voice caught in her throat and she choked on her next words.

"I will," Walter replied, putting a hand on her arm. He got to his feet and Hans followed suit and then the two men reached down and helped her rise as well. Once she was up, she met Walter's eyes again and he nodded solemnly. "I promise. I'll tell him." Silke clasped his arms tightly before releasing him.

"Go, then," she said, like a mother commanding her child now. "Get back to your business." She smiled and nodded at him, then at Hans. "I'll be on my way then, gentlemen," Silke continued, feeling lighter than she had in months. "Good day!" And then she was off again, hope filling her chest for the first time in God only knew how long.

She was not as she had been before - she still had days, more frequent than in the past, where she couldn't bring herself to move for the despair of it. She didn't hear from Walter Kugler or Max Vandenburg again - but then, she hadn't expected to. She still had moments where the swirling waters of life uprooted her and left her adrift; moving, but with no direction or control. But hope had taken root in Silke once more, and she refused to let it die.

* * *

><p><em>I'm only really moderately happy with this and also am very sorry about how long it took to get this up. A busy week turned into a busier weekend and between a 36-hour sewing marathon, a parade, and a full day at the Renaissance Festival, this ended up getting neglected. I expect to be able to update on time next week, though. So look for me Sunday! <em>


	4. Chapter 4

****A FAMILIAR SCENE****

**Bombs falling**

**A girl, running**

**A Jew**

**Some stars**

Silke looked upon the scene as if from far away – outside of her body. The man froze, horror rending his face and the smile vanishing as his body tensed, preparing to bolt until the word hit his ears.

"Max?"

Disbelief replace horror, his eyes going wide as they faced each other, like boxers in a ring, waiting to see who would make the first move. The wind seemed to push at Silke and she took a step toward him.

"Max?" she repeated, wonder infusing her words as her feet carried her forward without command.

Max was looking at her like he was seeing a ghost. Silke was only a dozen or so steps away from him now. He seemed to be in a trance as he watched her – a familiar expression on his face. The wind pushed at her back, blowing her hair all about her and chilling her legs under her dress. The sudden movement seemed to startle Max back to reality.

"Silke?" His voice was quiet and rough, but she heard it all the same – and just like that, the spell cast between them was broken as Silke sprinted the last steps toward the lanky man and launched herself into his arms. He caught her out of reflex and stumbled back a moment. They pulled back and looked at each other before they both burst out laughing – Silke with a high, almost hysterical giggle and Max breathlessly, the sound full of wonder and disbelief. She pressed her face to his chest, listening to the too-quick beating of his heart and knowing hers wasn't doing much better.

Despite the fact that he felt thinner under her arms than she remembered him being, she felt her feet being lifted from the ground as Max spun her around. When he set her on her feet again, Silke pulled back and looked at Max – really looked at him, this time. His face, which had always been sharp and thin, was even thinner now. His cheekbones stood out on his face and his jaw was sharp. With her arms tight around him, she could feel how thin he was – could feel his ribs standing out even through his grey, woolen sweater.

She pulled one arm away from him and raised her hand slowly to his cheek. His skin was slightly cold and paler than it had been the last time she saw him. Max's eyes slid closed as he leaned into her touch, and she ran her thumb across his skin. His hand came up and settled over her fingers, holding her hand there, before he turned his head and kissed her palm lightly. His eyes opened once more and he looked down at her. The smile was back, and as he gazed at her, the same delighted euphoria was evident in his face that had been there as he looked upon the stars. Silke thought her chest would burst if she didn't move, so she acted – doing what seemed to her the only sensible thing to do at the moment.

Silke reached up with both hands and pulled Max's face down, crushing her lips to his in a bruising kiss. Her hands fisted in his hair as she tried to pull him closer and his arms went around her waist as if by instinct. Their teeth clicked together and their hands scrambled for purchase, trying to be as close as physically possible.

When the need to breathe finally drove their lips apart, Silke continued to cling to Max's hair. Both of their faces were flushed as they pressed their foreheads together, breathing each other's air.

The lovely moment was shattered when the sound of an engine roared into their hearing and they leapt apart as if they'd been shocked. Their eyes locked and then jumped to the glare of headlights rounding the corner.

Silke reacted first, lunging to grab Max's hand before bolting down a side-street that ran between two of the houses. She pushed him up against the wall facing away from the truck and pressed herself close to him. Both held their breath as the sound of the engine drew closer. The lights flashed and Silke choked, pressing her face into Max's sweater.

Soon, the noise passed. The lights faded into the distance and silence settled over them again but still they did not move for many minutes. The wind picked up again, turning Silke's hair into a whirlwind in the narrow alley and the movement and chill seemed to break her from her trance. She pulled her head back and looked up at Max. His eyes were closed and his head was leaned back. She could see the quick rise and fall of his chest in time with his shallow breaths. Silke reached one hand up to his face.

"Max," she murmured. "Max, come back to me." His eyes slid open and he looked down at her. The corners of his lips twitched up just a bit.

"I'm here," he replied, threading a hand through her hair. His mossy eyes shone in the moonlight, brighter than they had been before. He blinked slowly and tears began to leak out of the corners of his eyes. One rolled down his cheek and touched the side of Silke's hand where it rested. Silke brought her other hand up and pulled his face down within her reach. She placed kisses on the corners of his eyes, where the tears continued to fall, despite his efforts to stop the flow. She kissed his forehead and cheeks and nose and then his lips one more time. "I'm sorry," he said, when they broke apart. "I don't know why-" She shushed him.

"You don't need to apologize," she breathed. The sentence hung in the air before-

"I missed you," he said. "So much. Walter told me about your letter but we thought it would be too risky to write you back. But then after he came here-" His face broke into a weak smile and he kissed her forehead. "Did you need to slap him?"

Silke choked out a laugh before she stifled herself. "Well, he wouldn't tell me. And you know I've never been the best at handling my temper."

Max laughed too now, though the sound was breathless and shaky, and when he quieted, both were stilled by the silence of the world around them. At length, Silke pulled away. "I should go," she said, sounding as though she wished the words were anything else. "I need to go to the shelter - they'll be wondering where I am."

Max nodded. He kissed her forehead again, closing his eyes like that would make the moment last longer. He knew it wouldn't. Words danced on his tongue, though he hesitated to utter any of them for fear they would be the wrong ones. "When will I see you again?" he finally asked, the words sounding flat and far too casual in his own ears. His eyes were still closed.

Silke frowned and took his face in her hands again. She could still feel the wetness of his tears under her palms as she pulled him down and kissed him again, before she released him and stepped back. "Soon," she promised. Her voice was strong and Max opened his eyes. The moss in them was still damp and watery, but he smiled at her all the same, and she felt her own expression soften as he did.

"Do you know where to find me?" Silke felt a real smile move her lips as she considered.

"I think I do," she replied, a mischievous turn to her smile that made his stomach twist. "I'll come tomorrow. After work." The words hung in the air for a moment before Silke finally glanced away. She turned and strode toward the alley's opening before her eyes darted back to him. "Goodbye, Max," she said, and the assured lack of finality in her voice nearly made his heart soar.

"Goodbye, Silke," he replied. And then she was gone, back up Himmel Street toward the shelter, where she would hide from the bombs that were not coming. She would sit between the young Nazi who had asked her to dinner the week before and the man whose basement hid a Jew. She would not smile or laugh or cry like she wanted to. She would sit in silence, waiting for the bombs that were not coming. She would roll her lips together and think to herself that the skin was tingling.

The Jew would collect himself, run a hand through his dark, feathery hair, and return to the basement, where he would rehearse the confessing of his sins to his protectors. The image of the stars overhead was burned into his eyes and alongside it, his mind played back the moment when his head had snapped down and she had stood there, pale hair flying and bathed in moonlight, like a ghost or an angel or some other supernatural, holy thing upon which he did not deserve to look.

Max's religious upbringing had not been particularly strict, and he was not especially devout. But that night, he found himself praying for the first time in years. Praying that she would come to him.

* * *

><p><strong>**AN EXPLANATION**<strong>

**What was so important to Silke Amsel  
>that she would risk an air raid to retrieve it?<strong>

An admission:

"I meant to do this properly."

Seventeen year old Max Vandenburg fidgeted, his fingers locking and unlocking, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. He looked anywhere but Silke's searching blue eyes. Other youths flowed past them, a few yards to the left, down the main steps of the school. The pair were tucked away between the side of the steps and the front wall of the building. Children and teenagers fanned out in all directions and groups stood around chatting, letting them remain inconspicuous.

One of Max's hands drifted to his pocket, where his fingers pressed into the hard metal that was hidden there, warmed by its proximity to his body. He had backed himself up to the cool brick wall of the school and as Silke took a step closer, he could feel his heart speeding up.

Strictly speaking, I didn't really _need_ to be here to witness this scene. My work had been done the previous week, when I pushed the small object to the top of the drawer through which Mathias was digging. The rest had practically been done for me.

I love days like that, when all I have to do is nudge something just right; move one thing, one person, one bump or rock, and everything else just falls into place for me. I don't usually have to stick around on days like that, but I often do, just to see it happen and know I don't have to do anymore.

Now, that same object sat in the pocket of Max Vandenburg, as he pointedly avoided the blue eyes in front of him. It was a locket - a small, silver oval with raised, winding scrolls going from the rim inward to the middle, where they formed something like a flower. It had belonged to Silke's mother, and had spent the last fifteen years or so hidden away in a drawer in the Amsel family's apartment - until Mathias had unearthed it and given it to Max. The young man's affection for Silke had been plain as day to everyone around them, and Mathias had thought that perhaps he could make some use of it. Now, the small pendant contained two things - a picture of Krista Amsel and Mathias that had been taken a few weeks after his birth, and a small scrap of paper with only a few words on it.

The locket now sat, hard and unforgiving, against his fingertips in the right pocket of his trousers. His admission hung in the crisp air around them. "_I meant to do this properly."_

Silke's eyes still sought his as she came closer. "What?" It was all she could think to ask. The sound of the students nearby filtered into the silence between them as Max searched for the words. He'd had this all planned out - all of what he would say to her and how he would present it, but then she'd gone and stood up for him the week before. She'd stood up for _him_, despite the things those men had been saying about her, despite _his_ failure to stand up for _her_. Despite him being a Jew. She'd stood up for him and as a result, the words written in carefully constructed Hebrew letters contained in the locket now also hung in the air between them, fallen from his lips too early.

The words were passed to her once more as he extracted the necklace and passed it over to her. As the metal hit her palm, her eyes went to find his once more and this time, she met them. "Mathias gave it to me," he admitted sheepishly. "It belonged to your mother, but no one had touched it since she- since you were born. I cleaned it up and-" he nodded and Silke clicked the latch open. Her eyes widened as she took in the contents before looking back to Max.

"What does it say?" she asked. She knew. I know she knew, and Max knew that she knew. But she wanted to hear him say it. One of his hands reached out for her and he cupped her cheek. She leaned into the touch and closed her eyes as the words washed over her.

"I love you."

A small smile touched her lips.

"I know," she breathed, before she opened her eyes again. "I love you, Max."

They could never say which one of them moved first, but before either of them knew it, Silke was crushed to Max's chest, one hand around his back; the other, crushing the locket between them.

Because of that locket, they would find themselves in a similar position, several years later. But the next time would be at midnight, on a deserted street in Munich. For now, the sun beat down on Silke's back and warmed her hair, and the breath in the chest under her ear was steady with contentment.

* * *

><p><em>Damn, maybe I should just move my update day to Tuesday...(Just musing. For now, it's still officially Sunday.)<em>

_Once again, thanks to Hannah for the editing and for putting up with my aversion to commas. Thanks also to my followers (all three of you. =p), everyone who's reviewed, and my one favourite'er. ALSO! I've just passed 300 views, so thanks to everyone who's taken the time to read! Please review if you'd like. ^^* _


	5. Chapter 5

The moment Silke had stepped through the door of the shelter, there had been a visible release of tension in the room. Liesel sagged slightly and Rosa Hubermann began muttering something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer of thanks. Tommy looked like he was about to burst into tears as he clung to his mother and Kurt Steiner was rubbing Rudy's back, though his own eyes spoke of panic and he looked as though he'd been about to run out the door after her.

It struck Silke then - there were people on Himmel Street who truly cared about her. Guilt twisted in the pit of her stomach as she took a seat besides Hans, who reached over and put a hand on her shoulder without looking at her. Klaus Holtzer sat on her other side - a young man whose bum knee kept him out of the draft. A week previous, he'd limped toward her as she'd walked down Himmel Street toward her apartment. He had, in very few, very blunt words, told her that he wanted to take her on a date. And Silke had, in just as few words, turned him down. He'd shrugged it off well enough and had walked her the rest of the way to her building. Now, she could see the worried look he was giving her out of the corner of his eye.

As people began to settle and still once more, Liesel rose from her place by Rosa, prying her hand loose from the woman's death-grip, and came over to Silke. The two only looked at each other for a moment before Silke opened her arms and Liesel practically fell into them. Though the girl was getting taller, she still managed to ball herself up on Silke's lap, tucking her head under the older girl's chin. She did not cry, but Silke could feel her shaking.

Silke leaned her cheek against the top of Liesel's hair, closing her eyes for a second. Guilt for the worry she had caused the girl still curled in her chest and a dozen comforting - but meaningless - phrases danced on her lips. But as the others around them began to settle and a child across the room began to sniffle, Silke whispered three words into Liesel's dirty blonde hair.

"He's all right."

Liesel stiffened in her arms for a moment before pulling back and staring at Silke. Her dangerous brown eyes were wide and the worry had been completely replaced by shock. Silke smiled gently at the child and crossed her heart. Liesel relaxed a bit before nodding. She clambered out of Silke's lap and returned to her place beside Rosa. Silence returned to the shelter as Silke reached into her coat pocket to feel the locket. She didn't dare take it out or open it for fear someone would see or ask her about it. But she placed her fingers against it, feeling the cool metal, the raised ridges, and feeling as though she could hear the words inside echoing in her bones.

"_I love you."_

Silke rolled her lips together and pressed them tight to hold back her smile. Max was alive. Max was safe. Max was _here._

When the all-clear sounded, there was a visible breaking of tension.

Children hugged their parents and each other and husbands and wives embraced. A cigarette was passed around. Though Silke had never been much of a smoker, when it passed into her hands, she pulled hard, breathing down the acrid smoke and feeling the rush behind her eyes.

"Not you, Jesse Owens," she hears Alex Steiner joke as he pulls the cigarette away from Rudy's lips.

The lot of them filed out of the basement and onto the street, fanning out in the directions of their various homes. Silke stepped out just ahead of Liesel and as she turned down the street, the girl caught her sleeve and when Silke turned back to see Liesel staring up at her with wide, questioning eyes, she smiled.

"I'll come by tomorrow," she said. "After work. That'll be all right, _ja_?"

Liesel nodded silently and Silke nodded back as the young girl released her. She let her long legs carry her quickly up the street to her building. She did _not_ glance at the Hubermann's house as she passed. She did _not_ burst through the door to find Max waiting for her. She did not. But _oh_, how she wanted to.

By the time she laid down in her own bed, it was nearly 2 in the morning and her body felt heavy. The blankets seemed to weigh a ton as they pressed down on her. Her eyes drifted closed and just before sleep claimed her, she saw Max's face against the dark behind her eyelids - the wide-eyed, wonderstruck expression he'd been giving her since she was 13 years old.

The locket now hung heavily around her neck, and its solid pressure on her sternum seemed to hold her as she drifted off.

* * *

><p>Liesel passed through the door of 33 Himmel Street behind her foster parents, and as soon as Hans closed the door behind her, she made a beeline for the basement. Rosa and Hans were close on her heels.<p>

The family descended into the dimmed, yellowish light of the chilled room was completely silent; Max was nowhere to be seen.

"Max?" Liesel spoke up, before Rosa's voice overtook hers:

"He's disappeared."

"Max, are you there?" The calm of Papa's voice pulled through the air. There was a brief moment of silence before the answer came back to them.

"I'm here."

It seemed, for a moment, that the words had come from behind the drop sheets and paint cans hiding the pile of bedding, but then the light changed. Liesel was the first to see him, sitting in front of them. Against the sheets, his pale face had nearly been lost, but his black hair stood out sharply and the unusual redness of his lips put his mouth into stark relief as it pressed into a hard line. His swampy eyes were rimmed in red as he looked up at the family, his jaw set.

As they walked across to him, his lips parted and Liesel thought they looked swollen as he spoke.

"I couldn't help it," he said, his voice rough.

Rosa was the first to respond, stepping closer and crouching down to face him. "What are you talking about, Max?"

"I…" his voice seemed to strangle itself as he struggled with the words. "When everything was quiet and I thought everyone had gone down, I went up… the curtains were open a crack and I… I could see out. I thought it would be deserted so," His face looked pained as the words spilled out, "I went outside." He hid his face against his knees and now Hans was kneeling in front of him too.

There was no anger.

There was no reproach.

Papa spoke next. "How did it look?"

Max looked up, guilt and sorrow pushing against astonishment, and a glimmer of happiness at the memory. "There were stars," he said. "They burned my eyes. And…" he appeared to be warring with himself, but Rosa beat him to the next words.

"Did anyone see you?"

They knew the answer to that question before she asked it. There was no reaction when Max nodded. There was no remorse in his eyes now as he met Rosa Hubermann's stare directly - an accomplishment that few could boast.

"Yes," he said. "She saw me in the street. I didn't realize she was there until it was too late." Despite the words, his voice was utterly unapologetic and Rosa's brow creased.

"She won't say anything," Hans said, his tone reassuring. (Though whom, exactly, he was trying to reassure was unclear to everyone present.) They all knew who it had been who had seen Max. "Silke's a good girl. She wouldn't-"

"I know," Max said, interrupting Hans and shocking everyone. "I know she is. I just...I'm sorry I had to drag her into this." The silence following his words dragged on and just as understanding was beginning to dawn on Hans' face, Liesel spoke up.

"She told me." the room seemed to be made infinitely larger by the girl's small voice. "I was so worried about you - we all were - and she told me you were safe."

Hans raised an eyebrow at Liesel and Rosa's head whipped around. "What's that?" The woman barked. "How did she- why on Earth…" for once, the imposing woman was at a loss for words as she turned back to Max to look for an explanation. The young man looked sheepish now.

"I know her," he admitted, suddenly seeming very fascinated with the texture of the concrete floor. "I was friends with her brother in Stuttgart, and we-" he seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. "We were very close."

A smile of understanding cracked Hans' face and Rosa's eyebrows shot toward her hairline. She opened her mouth and closed it several times before her husband spoke, his eyes glittering with mischief. "Very close, eh?" He said, an amused edge to his voice, and Max's face reddened. "Still very close, then?" But before Max could dig his hole any deeper, Rosa smacked Papa's arm.

"Oh hush up, _saukerl_," she snapped, though her expression was one of good-natured teasing. She might have continued, but Liesel chose that moment to speak up again.

"She said she was coming tomorrow," her voice silenced any retort Hans might have made to his wife was silenced before it was born. "After she gets done with work."

Rosa's eyes went wide and Hans' mouth popped open. His silver eyes flickered between his daughter and the young man, who now wore a pained expression. "I was going to introduce that part a little more gently," he admitted, "but there's that too."

Hans and Rosa looked at each other in a way that said they would have a long talk about this later tonight, but for now, Rosa just nodded. "I suppose there's nothing to be done about it now," she said, rising. Max began to shift, moving behind his sheets once more and Liesel moved forward to sit with him.

Her papa gave her permission to stay with him for a while longer, and they bid her parents goodnight as they went back up to the house. Max settled against the wall with his sketchbook, Liesel with _A Song in the Dark_.

She opened the book and looked at the words, but her mind was moving too quickly for her eyes to focus on them properly. Eventually, she looked up. Max's eyes were on his book and did not move when she spoke.

"You know Silke?" Liesel asked, eager to find out more about the connection between two of the best people in her life. Max only nodded, one corner of his mouth twitching a bit. "Have you known her for long?"

There was a lengthy pause, during which Max's eyes stayed fixed on his book. "We lived in the same area all our lives," Max finally answered. "But we really met when I was fifteen."

"How?"

"I beat up her brother."

"Oh."

Another lengthy pause. And then: "Max?"

"Yes, Liesel?"

"Do you love her?"

Max looked up at her and blinked, startled by how quickly the girl had come to that conclusion. "Yes," he replied, a real smile touching his swollen lips this time. "And I think I always have."

Liesel considered that for a moment, her eyes falling down to the pages on her lap. She returned them to Max again and asked, "Were you as annoying about it as Rudy is?"

Max stared at her for a second, blinked a few more times, and then burst out laughing. His swampy eyes closed and his head dipped as his shoulders shook with mirth. When he had mostly regained control of himself, he looked back to Liesel, his smile now wide enough to show his teeth. "I don't know if you'll believe it," he replied, "but I was worse."

Liesel raised her eyebrows, seeming skeptical of that, but accepted the answer with a nod before returning to her book. She stayed with him until morning, _A Song in the Dark_ open on her lap and Max sketching behind the sheets.

_From a Himmel Street window_, he wrote, _the stars set fire to my eyes._

A frown.

He crossed the line out.

_Under a Himmel Street sky,_ he wrote under it, _Jewish lungs and German lips breathed together._

* * *

><p><em>Not only am I on time this week, I am, by all accounts, early! Yay! <em>

_Admittedly, quite a bit of the second part was ganked from the book because most of it didn't really need to be changed. Also I borrowed the last line with some fairly major alterations because I just love it? Profuse thanks to Hannah for putting up with my stream of 2 am, all-caps messages and to my new reviewers for your kind words. Thanks for reading and please keep reviewing. _^_^


	6. Chapter 6

Despite the late night, Silke was awake before dawn. She couldn't bring herself to be tired, however, passing through the day in a haze that didn't go unnoticed. This was probably what prompted Alex Steiner to come out to where she was distractedly counting the money in the register. He'd been watching her for the past five minutes, during which she'd had to start over three times.

The man came forward and put a hand on her shoulder. Silke jumped, not having heard his approach, and turned to face her boss. "Why don't you head home for the day, Silke," he suggested gently. The girl blinked at him, looking confused, and he continued, "You seem rather distracted, and it doesn't seem to be doing either of us much good. Besides, there's only an hour or so left until closing. Go home and get some rest."

Silke opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before she smiled. "Thank you, Herr Steiner," she said finally. She reached under the counter for her coat and handbag. "I'm sorry I've been so off today. It was probably last night…"

Alex nodded. "Understandable," he agreed, ushering her toward the door. "Go on now."

Silke smiled at him before turning toward the door. She pulled on her coat quickly before stepping out into the chilly autumn air of Molching and turning the corner to head up Himmel Street.

The cold air biting at her nose and lips couldn't stop the smile spread across her lips, brightening her face like a new shade of lipstick, as her shoes clacked on the pavement under her feet. Her pace was quick and she bypassed her own apartment building to continue on to the door of 33 Himmel Street.

Silke climbed the few steps and rapped briskly on the brown door, before opening it for herself as she always did.

Inside, Rosa Hubermann was frozen in turning toward the door. Her eyes were tense, but she let out a sigh that sounded relieved when she saw who it was.

"Hello, Silke," she said, trying to seem casual. Her visits were, after all, a fairly regular occurrence.

"Good afternoon, Rosa," Silke replied stiffly, stepping forward to take a seat at the table. She chewed her lip and the words in her mouth as Rosa turned back to the ironing. There was no point to beating around it, she decided. Either Liesel or Max had to have told her about this visit, so it would come as no shock to the iron-fisted woman. Silke opened her mouth to speak at the same moment that Rosa turned around with her own mouth open. Their words collided in the air.

"It's no secret why I'm here."

"You've come to see him, then?"

The jumble of words hung in the air for several long seconds before smiles cracked across both faces. Silke began to laugh a little breathlessly and Rosa coughed and spoke again.

"He's in the basement." Of course he was in the basement. Silke's laughter faded away as she rose. "Head down if you like."

Silke nodded, and took a step toward the door, but she hesitated, her blue eyes meeting the dark, steely gaze of Rosa Hubermann. "Thank you, Rosa," she said. The words were simple, but she tried to convey with her tone exactly how much she was thanking the older woman for. Rosa's eyes softened and she made as if to reach for the girl, but Silke turned away, crossing the remaining distance to the basement door - which was cracked open a few inches - and heading down.

The sight before her was rather surreal. One wall was covered in painted words in what could only be a child's printing. The area under the stairs was blocked off with drop sheets and paint cans. Behind it, she could see a light and movement. The smile was back now as she took a few steps forward onto the cold, concrete floor.

Words and greetings danced behind her lips, but in the end, all that came out was, "Max?"

The movement stopped briefly, then resumed in a quick rustling. A few seconds later, the paint cans shifted and one of the drop sheets was moved aside. The long form of Max Vandenburg unfolded from the hiding place. His eyes were wide as he took her in before his pale face split into a smile to match her own. He took a few steps in her direction before freezing, his smiling lips parting just a bit and a look of amazement on his face, as though he couldn't really believe that she had come.

"Max!" the quiet exclamation broke the brief silence between them as Silke took the last few steps between them in a leap, launching herself into his arms. Unlike the previous night, he was ready for her this time and caught her around the waist, pulling her feet off the ground and spinning her. Silke let out a quiet shriek and the two laughed.

Max pressed his face into her hair, murmuring her name. "Silke…" The way he said her name was familiar to her, like a prayer. "Silke...I can't believe you're here."

Silke pulled back a bit and smiled widely up at him. "Did you think I wouldn't come?" She asked, and then reached up to put a hand to his face. "Have a little faith in me. I'll always come to you."

Max looked like he was about to start crying again, so Silke did the only reasonable thing she could think to - putting both hands behind his neck and pulling him down for a kiss. Unlike their bruising embrace of the previous night, this one was slow, gentle, and reassuring - almost like those they shared when they had been teenagers, only just figuring each other and themselves out. One of Silke's hands worked its way gently through the hair at the back of Max's head as his fingers dug into the wool of her coat. A small noise escaped his throat at the feeling of her fingers on his scalp - not from desire, but just the sheer relief of being touched, held, loved, and of the loneliness - that had been his near-constant companion since going into hiding - being lifted.

Their lips separated but they stayed close. Silke tucked her head into the crook of his neck, her fingers staying in his hair as she carded her fingers through the dark, feathery strands. Her nails brushed his scalp and he let out a pleased hum, his hands splaying on her back, holding her close.

Eventually, Max began to reluctantly pull away, keeping one hand on her back as he directed her to the place outside his corner where he and Liesel normally sat. Silke folded her legs under her and pulled him down beside her, gripping his hand tightly.

"Now," she said, when they were both settled, a determined edge to her voice. "What happened?" Her tone left no room for debate on whether or not she would hear the entire story, but Max's eyes flicked down, suddenly intent on a spot on the floor. Silke frowned. "Max." That one word held the tone and power of a command, but he continued to avoid her eyes. Silke reached forward and took hold of his chin, stubble biting her fingertips as she pulled his head up. "_Max._ Look at me." He obeyed, moss and sky colliding in the space between them. Silke frowned at the hesitence she found there.

"You've done your level best to leave me out of this since I was seventeen," She said, her tone strong, "Or do I need to remind you that _you_ were the one who left _me_ when the laws started?" Max flinched visibly but she kept a firm hold on him. "But you should know me better than that. I will _not_ be left out. All I got out of Walter was that you were alive. Tell me what happened."

Her stare pinned him in place and he could feel his face heating up. Though reluctance seeped from every inch of him, he told her, in halting words, the story of The Struggler, from Walter Kugler knocking on their door on _Kristallnacht_ to the snorer on the train.

When he finished the retelling, ending with reaching the Hubermann's house, they were both silent for several long handfuls of seconds. Silke had let go of Max when he'd began the story and now her hands sat in her lap, clenched hard into fists.

Finally, her lips parted. "Max…" The name was dropped quietly between them like a piece of paper. She reached out to him and put her arms around his neck, pulling him into a strong embrace. "Max, I'm so sorry." She could feel him stiffen, about to protest the apology, but she interrupted him before he could say anything. "No. Don't. I really am sorry. You've been so strong for such a long time - since before I knew - and all I did was run. I wish I could have helped you."

Max remained frozen against her for another moment before his shoulders sagged, his arms wrapping around her middle. Silke held him close to her, her right hand returning to his hair, stroking through the feathers in something like a soothing motion - though who it was meant to soothe was unclear to both of them.

"There was nothing you could have done, Silke," Max said finally, his voice pushing through the thick curtain of her hair to reach her ears. "There was nothing any of us could have done. But we're here now, and you shouldn't be sorry for any of it."

"I won't stand for you trying to push me away again, you know," she replied, and she felt Max wince against her neck. "I was young and stupid last time. I thought you would know best. I thought there was no way you'd be doing it if it _weren't _for the best. But I was wrong - we both were. You won't get rid of me this time."

"That...wasn't one of my best moments," he admitted sheepishly. "But really, Silke, you would be much better off without me. I'm just- I can't offer you anything. I don't-" Silke shifted under him, pulling his head up to silence him with her lips.

"Shut up," she advised him, when they broke apart. "If I cared about what you had to _offer_ me, I would have taken Klaus Holtzer up on his _offer_ of dinner last week." Max frowned and Silke found herself laughing as he practically pouted up at her. "Oh, don't look at me like that. I said no. Because I love you. It's always been you. How much you do or don't have to offer me isn't going to change that."

When Liesel came down the stairs a few hours later, she found them in the same place, in a similar position. Silke had her back to a wooden pillar under the stairs. Max sat between her legs with his back to her chest, her chin resting on the top of his head. Max had his sketchbook open on his lap and Silke was singing quietly, her eyes closed. A nearly-serene smile sat on Max's lips as he sketched and listened. Neither moved when Liesel appeared on the stairs, nor when she stood in front of them, looking down at the scene before her.

Silke stopped singing and opened her eyes to smile at the young girl in front of her. "_Guten Abend_, Liesel," she said, lifting her head a little. Max closed his sketchbook and looked up at her too.

The scene looked domestic, yet somehow so intimate, Liesel almost hated to intrude. But then Max's smile changed and he sat up a bit, so Silke's chin sat on his shoulder. "So," he said, folding his hands. "What's today's weather report?"

Everything about the scene was so familiar to Liesel, so much the same as it had been. But Silke was there, and Max's smile was broad, reaching his eyes and then passing them, lighting up his entire face like she'd never seen it. Things would not be exactly the same as they had been, she realized, as she tried to organize her thoughts under Silke's curious gaze. They would be better.

* * *

><p>That evening, as Silke sat in the Hubermann's basement with Max drawing and Liesel reading, Hans appeared at the top of the stairs. He smiled at the oddly idyllic scene before him and before long, he had joined them, sitting on the bottom step with his accordion strapped to his chest and supported on his knee.<p>

Silke met his eye and he winked before beginning the introduction to a song she had performed with him many times at the Knoller. Silke found herself grinning as the familiar notes stumbled around the room and into their ears. The introduction finished a second round, and Silke joined into the music with her voice.

****AND, IF YOU WILL****

**Allow me a moment of nostalgia, **

**for I can't help but be reminded by this scene **

**of one of my finer moments in the life of Silke Amsel. **

For as Silke had sat alone at a table in the Knoller with a drink in front of her, someone had called out a song to the accordionist playing for tips a few tables away. Silke didn't hear the voice, but Hans Hubermann did, and he started up on the introduction of the song.

_That _got Silke's attention, and her head snapped up to find the source of the music. She caught Hans' eye and he winked cheerily at her. A smile made its slow way onto her face and when the tune came around again, Silke found herself singing along. The words were simple and familiar, and the tune danced from her lips.

Heads turned towards them as the circle began to reform, splitting so that it went around her and the accordionist, drawing them closer together as the song continued. The man's silver eyes sparkled with joy, and Silke found herself beaming as she sang. Despite everything - the loneliness of living here, away from everyone she knew and loved, the tiring mundane existence of Molching - she had found magic in the sound of Hans Hubermann's accordion.

After their song finished, the most rousing round of applause ever heard at the Knoller went around the room. Hans stood up and took Silke's hand, where she sat at the table. He bowed and kissed her knuckles with the nature of a father who was quite proud of his daughter. The coins rattling into the accordion case were coming thicker now and when they stopped, the silver eyes were back as he held out a small handful of money to her.

"It's only fair," he insisted, when she tried to refuse the share. "You have a beautiful voice. Half of them only tipped because of you." Silke reluctantly pocketed the money and glanced nervously at the older man - worried that he felt annoyed about feeling obliged to share the tips with her. But her fears were entirely groundless, she discovered quickly, as she and Hans started up an easy stream of conversation. Mostly, they talked about music, since it was the one thing they clearly had in common. But soon the talk turned towards practically everything else. Family, work, and politics were all discussed at the table between the old man and the young woman. (Though the last was in hushed tones as they quietly revealed to each other their mutual distaste for the Party.)

When the bartender made the last call, Silke was startled into cutting off mid-sentence. She hadn't meant to stay out all night. But before she could even begin to worry about the walk home in the dark, Hans Hubermann appeared before her, offering her his arm.

"To Himmel Street, _Fr__äulein_?"

* * *

><p><em>That feels a bit short, but I don't think it is. This one was a bit of a chore for some reason. Just wasn't feeling it. Next week will probably be easier - but I most likely won't have it posted until next Tuesday or so because I have a very busy week and then a convention Friday-Sunday. So look for me next week on Monday or Tuesday. Thanks to the new subscribers, favourites, and my reviewers. You guys keep me going! If you haven't, please consider reviewing. ^_^<em>


	7. Chapter 7

The evening wore on and, though Silke knew she would need to go home before long, she let herself imagine, if only for a moment, that she would be able to stay by Max forever. But the real world demanded her attention, and also demanded that she not love a Jew.

The inevitability struck her suddenly when she heard Rosa on the stairs behind her. Before the stern woman even opened her mouth, Silke knew what was coming.

"Silke," she said. Her voice was uncharacteristically gentle, settling on Silke's shoulder to push the words into her ear. "You should go home soon, huh? Don't want to get people wondering what you're doing here."

A weight settled in the pit of her stomach, and when she swallowed, it felt like there was a lump in her throat. But Silke made herself swallow again, and the lump began to slowly dissipate. This wasn't like their last goodbye - not counting the night before. This was not, "Goodbye Maybe Forever" - this was "Goodbye Until Tomorrow." This was just like the goodbyes they used to say when they were young, Max leaving Silke outside the front of her apartment, when he knew her father was watching through the window so he'd kissed her goodbye up the block.

"All right, Rosa," Silke replied, not looking up. The woman's footsteps retreated, back up the stairs, and the basement was silent for half a beat too long.

"Well then," Hans said, snapping the straps on the accordion closed and rising to his feet. "We'll be upstairs." Liesel opened her mouth to object, but Hans just put an arm around her narrow shoulders and pulled her along as he made for the stairs.

Silke half-rose to her feet and Max's eyes immediately shifted from his sketchbook to watch her. "Hans," she called after him. He was halfway up the stairs, and turned back to meet her eye. The lump was back in her windpipe and the words clawed out of her throat to sit at the bottom of the stairs. "Thank you."

She could see Hans's silver eyes sparkling as he smiled down at her. He said nothing – there was nothing to say – and nodded in acknowledgement. Then he turned away again and continued up the stairs, on Liesel's heels.

The door closed behind them, and the silence swelled, seeming to take up physical space in the distance between the two figures still standing in the room. The light of the kerosene lamp yellowed the world around the edges, turning Silke's hair from parchment to gold and coloring Max's white-washed skin with a tint of lemon. His lips, tinted to orange by the light, formed a sad smile. Silke could see the words forming in his throat, and they made her sick. So before he could utter any of them, she stepped forward and put a finger to his lips.

"I'm not saying goodbye," she said, her voice firm and steady, despite how her stomach turned. "This isn't goodbye."

Max raised an eyebrow and reached up to take her hand from his mouth. "What is it, then?" The words settled in the shrinking space between them.

"It's, 'until tomorrow,' _dummkopf_," she snapped. "I'm not leaving forever, and neither are you."

****THE WORDS SILKE AMSEL LEFT UNSAID****

"**Not yet."**

Max's eyes fell to the floor and he blinked dumbly.

"I'm sorry," he said finally. He continued to avoid her eyes as he spoke. "I guess…I've just gotten used to goodbyes."

Silke immediately felt a knot of guilt settle in her chest, but she determinedly pushed it away. "Then get unused to it, _arschloch_." Her voice was harsher than she meant it. A twinge of guilt returned when Max flinched, but she plowed onward. "Because I'm not going anywhere. I'll be back tomorrow. Before work if I can manage it. Tomorrow evening if not. But I _will_ be back. No 'maybe', or 'probably', or 'if I remember'. I _am_ coming back, you hear me?"

Finally, his mossy eyes rose, taking in the fierce expression creasing her face and radiating out with an intensity that was almost physically palpable. The hand that wasn't still holding hers came up to her cheek, pressing to the slightly flushed skin and feeling the heat of another living soul. A soul who was near him. A soul who did not want to hurt him.

A soul who loved him.

****A SOMEWHAT HYPOCRITICAL NOTE****

**I don't put much stock in the idea of "soul mates."**

**They bore me. **

Let me clarify. I dislike the idea of two people being fated for each other and no one else from the moment they're born. As the one running the show, let me tell you that it is not only exceedingly rare but exceedingly dull. Some of the most boring, uninspired people I've ever come across are those who only ever love one person.

These two are different. I won't say for sure whether or not they were meant to be together from the beginning - though I certainly did have a hand in the long string of coincidence and chance that lead up to it - but if I could only say one thing for the love shared between Silke Amsel and Max Vandenburg, it is that they were not fated. Before the end of their story, they spent far longer than anyone should have to fighting to be together, fighting for their lives, fighting to be in love, fighting to stay in love - and that fight made them a stronger match than any so-called "soul mates" I've seen in my time.

A small but hopeful smile crossed Max's lips, and Silke's face softened. "_Ja_, Silke," He replied, after a thick pause. "I hear you. See you tomorrow, then?"

Silke smiled now too, and she nodded before stepping closer and wrapping her arms around him. She could feel his breath on her hair and the steady rise and fall of his chest under her cheek. He returned the embrace - faster, this time - his arms going around her back and holding her tightly to him.

Max pressed a kiss to the top of her head, but Silke pulled back, one hand going behind his neck to pull him down for a proper kiss. Though it was brief - practically chaste - when they broke, the color was high in Silke's cheeks. A grin came across her face as she stepped back. "I love you," she said, sounding as though she were reminding him. "I'll see you tomorrow."

And before Max could say anything else, she had disappeared up the stairs. The basement door opened and closed again, and then she was gone.

* * *

><p><em>I'm vaguely disgusted with myself for how late and short this is, but I've had the busiest of busy weeks and was gone for three days straight, plus work and college tours and I'm sewing costumes for myself and my mom for another convention in just under two weeks. I really wanted to have more done on this and I didn't want to skip last week, but my schedule, my physical need for sleep, and my sanity just wouldn't allow it. <em>

_I definitely plan to update next Sunday, though. On time, unless something major should interfere. (Which it shouldn't.) So sorry for the length, but thanks for reading anyway. Please review and follow if you haven't. ^_^_


	8. Chapter 8

The air seemed to settle around Max in the brief silence after the door latched. However, the quiet didn't last long before Silke's voice drifted to his ears again, carrying through the house. The walls were thinner than the Hubermanns realized - not much happened on the first floor of the house that Max didn't hear. And now, he could hear her voice again, floating around his ears like music - after spending so long thinking he'd never hear her speak again, he'd gladly listen to her talk all day.

"Thank you," she was saying, most likely to either Hans or Rosa. "I wish I had known earlier, but… thank you. For keeping him safe." His heart did something funny in his throat, and he swallowed to try and make it stop. "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am. And thank you too for letting me see him."

"Would you let it stop you if we hadn't?" That was Rosa, and though her tone was arched Max could hear the small twist of her lips that was as near to a smile as the tough woman ever gave. Silke laughed, and Max swallowed again. His heart really needed to stop that.

"No," she said, "I suppose it wouldn't." Max smiled at that. It reminded him of their younger days, and he couldn't help the small surge of pride. His girl was willing to break in to see him - not unlike what he'd done for her on more than one occasion. The memory stirred his senses, bringing back the feel of the cool night air on his face as he scaled the fire escape bolted to the back of her building. The clench in his chest when she opened the window, beaming at him as she reached out. The feeling of her lips and hands as she greeted him, then thanked him…

Max shook himself. It was neither the time nor the place for those particular memories. Silke's voice was drifting down to him again.

"I should really be headed home, though - the people in my building are probably wondering why I'm out so late."

Max frowned. He had been so caught up in the joy of simply being with her again that he had completely neglected to find out… well, anything, really, about her life here in Molching. Where did she live? Who were her friends? What did she do? It had been four years since he'd last seen her - for all he knew, she was an entirely different person outside these basement walls.

He shook his head. It had been _four years_. Of course she was different. _She's older. Smarter. Change is what happens when time passes. _Max felt like an idiot for not realizing this. But clearly, however much she may have changed, some things had not. She was still a kind soul, still fair, still angry. She still loved him.

More words were exchanged - goodbyes between the Hubermann's and Silke - and then the door opened and closed. And she was gone. Max thought - as humans are wont to do - that the house felt colder without her presence.

****AN OBSERVATION****

**Though he will frequently deny it, **

**The young man is often more prone to sentimentality**

**Than any other iteration of human.**

Finally, after the sound of Silke's departure had settled in the air, Max brought himself to move, rising to duck back behind the drop sheets. He settled in on the makeshift bed behind them, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his calves. His forehead came to rest on his knees - the hair that Liesel had named as feathers falling around him like a dark curtain - and breathed deeply. It had been a long day.

Max exhaled and took in another deep breath. He noted the slight hint of spice and sweetness that had always reminded him of Silke coming from his sweater. It had been more than three years since he'd smelled it, and now it permeated the wool covering his torso. He took another slow breath before he unfolded his body and laid himself out flat on the mattress.

Liesel must have gone upstairs, for Rosa and Hans were talking now, in hushed voiced that still managed to carry down to the basement and into the cave of drop sheets. Through the sounds of the two moving around in the kitchen, their words drifted down to settle on Max's shoulders - his only companions in the dark.

"They're so sweet at that age," Hans was saying. Max could hear the lazy smile in his voice. Max's face flushed a bit, warm against the cool air of the basement. Sweet? "They remind me of us, when we were like that."

Rosa was busy at the stove - she was always managing to make herself busy at the stove. "What are you talking about, _Saukerl_?" she snapped. "By the time I was her age, I'd already turned down your proposals twice. In fact, if I look closely, I think I can still just see a bit of the black eye I gave you the second time hanging around." There was a brief moment of uncharacteristic silence. Max wondered how it felt in the room above - was it a tense silence? Awkward? Or was it one of those quiet, sweet silences that were so rare in the Hubermann house; the ones where one party smiled at the other, and they smiled back, and it hung gently in the air between them.

"That girl's stronger than you give her credit for, Rosa," Hans said finally - and Max remembered Walter's story about his confrontation with Silke. "She may love that boy, but she's not about to take any shit from him, either."

There was another gap in the voices and Max nearly drifted off in the dark, but Rosa's voice brought him back. "And what did you mean "sweet", anyway? They're just _stupid_ when they're that young. Full of _bright ideas_." Her emphasis left Max with no doubt as to exactly _how_ bright she thought them.

"That's what's so sweet!" Hans said with a laugh, but his voice sobered as he continued. "Besides, they're hardly children. They've both been through more than they should- and did you hear about Silke's brother? Missing in action. He's the only family she had."

Max felt his stomach drop a bit. He and Mathias had been close before the war. They'd had a bit of a falling out when Max had revealed his feelings for Silke - the protectiveness of an older brother briefly outweighing their friendship. Max had understood. He was the same way with his cousins, after all. But they had repaired things easily enough - and then Mathias had joined the army, under pressure from his father. They hadn't seen each other or communicated in years, but Max had still considered him a friend. And now, he could very well be dead.

Then, a thought meandered its slow way into his cold and sleep-soaked mind. Had he said that Mathias was the _only_ family Silke had left?

Somehow, the idea that Silke's father had died sometime since the last time Max had been a free man did not make him overly sad. Perhaps it had something to do with the way the man had always muttered anti-Jewish slurs under his breath whenever he'd answered the door for Max - or perhaps the way he'd shouted them when Silke had announced she was leaving. (He'd assumed it was Max's idea - and that they had some grand scheme of eloping or something to that effect. Max never really got the details of their supposed plans from him.)

Upstairs, the kitchen remained silent for long minutes before Rosa finally announced that she was going to bed. The floor creaked and then all was quiet.

Sleep crept in around the edges of Max's mind as he shifted the worn blanket higher toward his neck. And just as his body began to relax, his mind letting go of his conscious thoughts, one last one wandered though the beginnings of sleep.

He hadn't nightmared last night.

A smile touched his dry lips for a moment before consciousness left. She had always done her best to help him.

* * *

><p><em>I'm UNBELIEVABLY SORRY about the massive wait on this chapter but life and inspiration combined to suckerpunch my productivity. Note: If I ever say I'm writing another chapter from Max's point of view, I am relying on you lot to do EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER to stop me. <em>

_Now, I have a bit of bad news. I'm going to be putting this story on a semi-hiatus. I will still update periodically, but once a week is definitely out and I can't even guarantee once a month. I'm gonna be working more on school stuff - I'm going to college next fall and am in a somewhat informal gap year right now - and I'm also working on a fic for the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld which is currently taking up most of the space in my brain that used to be devoted to this. I still really do want to finish this - it might just take a bit (or a lot) longer than originally planned. _

_But I would like to thank all my readers, followers and favourites for all the support. I wouldn't have been able to get this done without you guys. ^_^ As always, please review if you enjoyed, and I'll see you again...eventually. _


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